Chapter Text
Jon found Martin sitting on the bed reading, and he'd happily taken the opportunity to lie with his head on Martin's chest and his own book in front of him. They'd shifted and nestled, and at some point Martin had put his book aside in favour of just lying there stroking Jon's hair and sometimes running a hand over his shoulders. It took a long time, probably, for things in Jon to shift over so that he lost interest in the book and turned and started kissing Martin. It was lovely and content and easy, but still new enough that each new touch — Martin's finger skimming the rim of his ear, Martin's mouth straying to the point of his jaw, the feeling of Martin's throat under his teeth — had a little thrill to it.
Martin eventually pushed up on an elbow over Jon, kissing all over his mouth, upper lip, lower lip, with delicate little nibbling kisses that made Jon feel pampered and luxurious. Finally he eased back, looking down at Jon with an expression so frankly, sweetly loving it made Jon blush
"Turn over?" he suggested.
"Um," said Jon. It took him a moment to get his voice back, and a moment more to process what Martin was saying. "I mean, we can try … that." It wasn't what he'd expected to hear, but he could try. Apparently it would have been a good idea to Know what Martin was interested in ahead of time. He'd have liked a little time to work up to this.
For several seconds they looked at each other before two pennies dropped. "No! I didn't — " "You didn't mean—"
"I… could rub your back," Martin said in a rush, "I used to be good at it. I mean, people said. That I was good."
Grinning helplessly at the misunderstanding, Jon rolled himself over.
"Top off?" Martin suggested, hopefully.
Jon stripped out of his shirt, and his undervest. He put his face into a pillow, raised it again because he needed air, crossed his arms under his head. That felt all right. Martin climbing over him, settling sitting on Jon's thighs felt very right too. But Martin said. "Easier to do your shoulders if you put your arms down. Here." He pushed the pillows together in front of Jon's face so that Jon's profile fit between them. It seemed to work.
Then Martin's hands curled over his shoulders and squeezed.
Within seconds, Jon realised he'd never been massaged before. A few people at uni had given him shoulder rubs, and that's all they had been, rubs, just moving his skin around. Martin's hands were working into his muscles, hard. First they worked from shoulders inward to neck, squeezing gently, and then both hands settled a few inches down on the right side and began to knead.
"Let me know if I go too hard," Martin said quietly.
Jon could see that this was a possibility. Martin's hands were very strong. The spot he was concentrating on was somehow exactly the right spot. It needed this press. It did hurt, a little bit, like a really good stretch. Martin worked the spot, and then, gentler, out from it. Then he went to the same spot on the other side and repeated the process, but not so hard, apparently able to tell Jon didn't need it so much there.
"This okay?" Martin asked.
"It feels… yeah. Great."
Martin moved up to the back of Jon's neck, squeezing. That took seconds before Jon felt something go easy in him, like he'd been clenching his hand around something for weeks and now he had dropped it.
Jon had the sense that Martin's first go had been a deliberate appetiser, to gauge whether Jon liked it, and now he was in for a full banquet.
After Martin had worked down his neck once, he went back up and instead of squeezing he began to work his fingertips into Jon's neck muscles. It was a little intimidating, to feel just how strong Martin's hands really were. And then he really dug in, and Jon grunted.
"Too hard?" Martin asked, hands drawing off.
"No. Good. Hurts, but good."
"Shouldn't hurt," Martin said, sweetly didactic.
"I'll let you know if it isn't good." And then, with all the good feelings Martin's hands had already pressed into him, he thought very clearly. He raised his head just a little, to counteract the muffling of the pillows. "Because it is very good, Martin. You are very good at this."
Martin made a little hum that shyly accepted the praise, and he went back to work. Neck, and then shoulders again, taking longer, putting more into it, including the upper parts of Jon's arms.
Jon began to drift a little. Martin had a pattern, first working over the area symmetrically, apparently getting the feeling of the muscles, then homing in on points that needed special attention, working them sometimes with deep focused presses of his fingers, sometimes crushing squeezes, then giving the whole area a deeper massage, and then a gentler finish. He always balanced out the work on both sides of Jon's body, and only once did Jon have to say, "Oh-okay, bit hard there."
"Sorry," Martin said, and bent to press a quick apologetic kiss to the spot before going back at it without pressing quite so hard.
And Jon drifted again, until Martin's hands finally slid off his arms.
"That was amazing," he murmured, not ready to raise his head from its place between the pillows.
"You can put your arms up for the rest if you like," said Martin, and started in on the upper part of Jon's back.
The rest. He was going on. Jon had really never had a massage.
After a while, Jon did shift his head, turning it to the side. Moving felt amazing, sleepy and loose and easy.
"Where did you learn this?" he murmured, because he wanted to know, and because he wanted to hear Martin's voice.
"I just used to… I had some friends before I dropped out, and we'd give each other shoulder rubs and they always said I was proper good at it." Roger, Jon remembered, and Viv, Yasmin, Dave, Charley. The ones Martin had gone to Blackpool with.
"You are," he said, feelingly, trying to ignore the Beholding's attempt to insert itself a new set of facts in his head about Martin and his school friends and the intensity of massages. "Then you haven't done this since school?" And he determinedly did not Know the answer.
"Well, Tim. And Sasha. But I don't think — "
Jon's eyes flew open. "You did this with Tim and Sasha?"
Martin's hands went away, which was an enormously outsized punishment for a moment's thoughtlessness. "In… in the office. Tim'd get sore sitting and I offered and he said I did such a good job he went and got Sasha… um…"
"I didn't know that," Jon said, carefully. "I'm — I'm really glad, Martin. That you could do that for them."
Lightly, Martin's hands settled again. They moved a little, in a way Jon interpreted as a question.
"Please don't stop," Jon said softly. "It's… really very good."
Martin went back to it.
Sitting in his office at the Archives, in those early days, Jon's shoulders had felt more or less permanently tensed, his neck had always hurt, he'd always stood up from the desk with his back complaining. And this, these hands, had been right there. If he hadn't been such an unbelievable shit to Martin, to all of them, if he'd been able to calm down for a moment. Served him right, but oh hell what a stupid tragedy he'd made of his life, even in the small things.
Martin did his back, careful around the spine and shoulderblades. Martin worked across lower, at his waist, fingers hesitant at the gaps in his ribs but sure where there was some depth of muscle to work with.
"Um, can I… go on?" Martin asked softly, fingertips at the waistband of Jon's trousers.
"I really, really want you to," Jon whispered. "But don't feel like you have — "
"I want to." Martin said shyly.
He did hesitate for a bit, shuffling backward so he was sitting farther back on Jon's legs, and then just rested his hands on the top curve of Jon's arse.
"You made me get my shirt off. Wouldn't it be better if I got the rest off?"
"You don't have to," Martin assured him hurriedly. "And if you want to put your vest back on — I shouldn't have asked — "
Jon pushed up on one elbow, and Martin hurriedly got off.
Jon walked on his knees up to Martin, slipped his arms around Martin's neck. "I don't mind. I usually don't bother, that's all." He put a palm on Martin's cheek and kissed him. "This is… great. Here, let me get them off."
He got out of bed, and became aware of Martin watching him, breathless, still kneeling up on the bed, still dressed.
Jon dropped his head, a little shy, very fond, aware that he'd thoughtlessly given this a special charge, just by staying in his vest and pants in bed. It wasn't that he was especially prudish about nudity, it was just habit. He thought about Martin's chest, the sparse brush of hair, soft pectorals, spray of little moles. "You could too?" he suggested.
Martin felt like a right idiot. First he'd asked Jon to get his vest off when clearly that was some kind of thing for him. And now he'd somehow set things up so it looked like he was expecting Jon to be naked while he kept his clothes on. Which sounded like something out of a bad porno now he actually thought about it. He got off the bed and started stripping off quickly, more clumsily than usual because despite himself he wanted to look at Jon.
And then, at the end he had a moment of blind blank dread about the boxers. Jon was so slim and elegant and Martin would never be anything but a lump. He could almost imagine that keeping them on was a respectful sign, but no, it wasn't fair to ask Jon to bare himself if Martin didn't.
It was ridiculous. It wasn't as if Jon was going to be surprised what he looked like. The boxers didn't hide or flatter much. And hell, Jon had seen everything at least once when Martin had been having one of his episodes in the shower.
And maybe Jon was sort of… okay with it? When Martin had put together a) Jon's ex, b) calling herself 'Georgie,' c) went to Oxford, he'd had a pretty clear picture in his head of the sort of sleek blonde woman who had bony ankles and a 'the Hon.' she never used until she needed to get her own way. When he'd actually met her he'd been almost unable to get his head around it, he'd been so wrong about every single bit. And even as much else as was going on, it had crossed his mind: had she been plump when Jon met her? When they were dating? Or had that been part of why they'd broken up?
While Martin was dithering, Jon had finished. Rawbone-thin, ribs and scars and so bare, so beautiful, lying himself down again in the middle of the bed, this time pushing the blankets down so he was just on the sheets, and then tucking his feet under the blankets again. Right. Jon got cold.
Jon got cold. Jon was naked to the air and Martin wanted to lay himself down between Jon and the world and just feel him.
He would take what he was given. He peeled himself out of his boxers in a hurry and sat himself down across Jon's thighs, careful not to put much weight actually on Jon. He couldn't help himself, he kissed the back of Jon's shoulder softly. "Let me know if you get too cold."
"I think someone told me that skin to skin was the best way to stay warm," Jon murmured.
Martin kissed him again, right on his spine, and then settled in to do his job.
Martin seemed to have a shy minute starting over again, and then started with pushing his fingers in at the small of Jon's back, smoothing out and down from there. If he'd done this only with school friends and the two from work, Jon realised, he'd probably never actually worked on this part of the body before — although Tim being Tim, he couldn't rule out that it had at least been on the table once.
But not like this. Even Tim, Jon thought, couldn't have argued for Martin's warm bare flesh in the office.
It could easily have been overwhelming, so much skin, so warm, but he was nicely relaxed and Martin was so gentle with him.
Martin's gift for massage held despite any unfamiliarity with the specifics, and he seemed to settle back into his pattern, working Jon's buttocks as strong and as gentle as anywhere else. By the time he was moving his hands on to Jon's thighs, Jon couldn't resist a little shift, just enjoying how good his muscles felt. "You're amazing," he said. "God, Martin, you — "
"Is it okay?" Martin asked, quietly.
Jon nodded to himself. Martin had been at the edge of complete confidence starting this, but now he was into territory he wasn't so sure on, and the nudity had made him shy.
"You feel so good," he said, turning his head a little down into his arms, because he knew Martin needed this but it would never not feel uncomfortable saying these things straight out. "Your hands, I haven't felt this good — ohhh"
"Sorry," Martin said, easing off the spot on Jon's thigh that hurt like a bruise. He went gentler, all around it, and it hurt a little, and then felt warm and easy and good, a pain Jon hadn't even realised was there fading.
"That's — Martin, that's so… wow."
Martin took care of his calves, and Jon only thought of a few more things to say, and anyway he was drifting in a warm lovely haze again.
Martin uncovered Jon's feet and dug his thumbs into them. Like that was a normal thing to do. Like Jon's feet mattered and needed to feel so good.
Finally, when the last stroke had eased off Jon's toes, Martin said softly, "Jon, do you want to turn over? I could do the front?"
Jon took a little time to take the words in properly. "Yeah. God, please." There could be more. His body presented more opportunities for Martin to make him feel this amazing. He slowly pushed up. Moving felt slow and sleepily difficult but so very good. He rolled himself and fell heavily back onto the pillows.
Martin looked down on him, and it made Jon feel like a gift laid out. He was physically aroused, a bit, but for once he wasn't too uncomfortable that Martin might take it wrong.
Martin started working his way up. He didn't spend too much time on the front of Jon's calves, but settled in on the big muscles on the fronts of Jon's thighs for ages, working up and down.
Jon did tense just a little as Martin finished there. There felt like an inevitability.
He started to protest as Martin leaned forward, held his breath as he saw that Martin wasn't just looking, his face was going straight to Jon's groin. But Martin just pecked a kiss there, shifted his seat, and began to massage low on Jon's stomach.
"Jesus Christ, Martin," Jon whispered.
"Was that… too much?" Martin was red across the cheeks, eyes fixed on what he was massaging.
"No. Not… not at all. It's fine. You're… you're great." It was weak, felt stupid, but he didn't know how else to respond to something so weird and so sweet.
The thing about Martin massaging the front of his body was that now they were face to face. Most of the time, working over Jon's stomach — again careful of the gaps in his ribcage — and then his chest, Martin's focus remained on the skin his hands were pressing, occasionally with a little frown of thought when he'd found a spot he thought needed extra work, but mostly just a look of pleased concentration, very much as he looked when writing in his poetry notebook. From time to time Martin would glance up at his face, just checking in, but the rest of the time Jon was free to watch him.
Martin felt big over him, a big protective frame. And yet all that skin, unprotected, that Jon knew felt so soft. He could watch the muscles and tendons in Martin's arms working, the interplay going up to his shoulders, and the tension in his thighs as he kept his weight lightly on Jon. Martin's cock was thick, halfway to erect. His eyes were so full of concentrated concern.
Martin finished with Jon's chest and yet there was still more, as he worked down Jon's arms again, this time including the forearms and hands. He broke his usual pattern of perfect balance, this time doing the right arm entirely first, before starting on the left.
As he finished with Jon's left hand, digging a little into the ball of Jon's thumb before finally stroking the skin, he looked up at Jon again and pulled Jon's hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the cup of Jon's palm. Jon was dreamily relaxed, but for the last little while, watching Martin his eyes had blurred a little, and he blinked them clear quickly hoping Martin wouldn't see the shine and think the wrong thing. He just felt so much. He couldn't have said what, but it had filled him to the top and seemed to be trying to leak out.
He cupped his hand around Martin's cheek — his hand felt amazing, the skin warm and buzzing alive but so loose. He stroked Martin's face and then hooked his hand around the back of Martin's neck to bring him down.
Martin came down for a kiss, but in a weird position, and Jon realised he was still trying to arch himself and avoid pressing his erection to Jon. Jon wrapped both arms around him and kissed him with absolutely no mercy until he'd lain down, and all Martin managed to do by way of resistance was shift to the side so he mostly wasn't lying flat on top of Jon.
Jon was about as relaxed as he was ever going to be, and he considered pointing this out, offering to try anything Martin was interested in. But in the end if Martin wanted something specific, he'd have to ask. Anyway, Martin was so good at this… he'd be able to turn Jon to jelly whenever it was needed, so if some sort of sex was on the cards, Martin could get him here again. It was a heady thought, that Martin could do this to him whenever he liked. With practice he might… well, Jon didn't see how he could improve on this but in theory… he might get better.
After a while of kissing, Martin settled on his back next to Jon, hips still tilted a little bit away.
"When, um— " Jon had to clear his throat, because he'd drifted down so far into relaxation his voice was a basso rasp . "When you used to do that for Tim — "
"Not like that!" Martin corrected
Jon nuzzled his face against Martin's stiffened shoulders to reassure him. "I'm not being jealous." Not right now, at any rate. "I sort of just… I wanted to ask: If you'd had a boss who wasn't an utter shit to you, at the time. Would you have ever…"
"Given you a massage at work? I mean, probably not? Boss is different, isn't it? And anyway, I'd have been too nervous."
"If you had boss who was actually nice to you, though?" Jon relaxed into place against Martin's side, eyes shut, just about able to keep the conversation going while his whole body floated happily.
"This boss is still you, though?"
"Yes?"
"Still too nervous."
"I can be nice!"
"You can't give your super intimidating boss you've already got a mahoosive crush on a massage. Him being nice just makes it worse."
"When exactly did this crush start?" Jon asked.
"Look, what I said that time was true, I always seemed to end up having crushes on impossible people, so after you'd been mean but then you were so gung-ho about protecting me from Jane Prentiss… it sort of… built up from there."
"Because I was nice to you once? Christ you have terrible taste in men. Lucky for me." Jon felt nearly drunk, talking seemed almost too easy and he wondered if he was saying things he shouldn't.
"No," Martin protested. "You weren't nice. But you listened. You didn't tell me it was all in my head, and you didn't tell me all the things I should have done different. It felt like we were working together, for the first time. Like I was useful. It actually kind of helped, knowing you didn't like me, that it wasn't just, aw, poor Martin, got to protect him. I'd been feeling pathetic and helpless for all those days in my flat. I mean, I'm not saying that I'd have necessarily said no if you'd invited me to sleep on your couch instead, but your whole thing about how the Archive was sealed, how you were going to get security from Elias — it made me feel less doomed. Like we could have a plan, figure things out."
"Sorry to disillusion you, but I very much did feel like I had to protect you." Jon pushed up, dimly again aware of how almost laughably good his muscles felt to move right now. He kissed Martin. "I'd only just found out how incredibly tenacious and stupidly brave you were, after all."
Martin made a little sputter of derision and nuzzled at Jon's cheek, jaw, neck, little kisses that eventually trailed off.
Jon pressed back all along the side of Martin's body. From here he had could see Martin's still-erect cock, which was an impressive sight. "Mind if I watch?"
"Wh-what?"
"You are going to get off, aren't you?"
"I, uh, I didn't— I wasn't — I could go into the bathroom?"
Jon shifted his head enough to be able to look up at Martin's face. "May I please watch?"
"Oh god. You want to…"
"Enjoy the view," Jon said, running fingertips over Martins' chest and slowly down.
Jon felt Martin both tense and deflate, like he was trying to recede from Jon. "You don't have to make fun of me," he said, in a small, cold, separate voice.
Making a supreme effort and very aware he was sacrificing some of his delicious torpor for Martin's sake, Jon raised himself again so he could look Martin in the eye. "I am not making fun of you."
Martin wasted his effort by ducking his head and looking away. "Look, I know I'm not much to look at."
Jon wanted to say that actually Martin was a lot to look at, in the best possible way, but he was bright enough at least to know that would come off wrong.
"I can't stop you being sensitive about your looks," was the best Jon could do, "and I do understand how having an avatar of the Eye watch you wank might put you off your stroke." He chased Martin's mouth until he could kiss it some more. "Whatever you're comfortable with."
Martin sighed. "Okay. Sorry. I'm, yeah, sensitive."
Jon considered making a joke about just how sensitive Martin was, and where, but decided not to risk it. "Um, it's-it's not an Eye thing. In case that wasn't clear."
"Good. Okay. I guess we can… try… this."
Jon settled in again with a satisfied sigh, letting himself go limp and loose, head on Martin's chest so he could look down.
Martin hesitated, then put his hand on his cock. It was interesting, compared to the size of Martin's hand it looked a bit less intimidating. Jon dreamily let his own hand drift out and compared for scale.
"Jon?"
Deciding that explaining his momentary fascination with Martin's size while carefully navigating Martin's sensitivities about his size was too much work, Jon put his hand over Martin's and guided it gently up and down. Martin's breath shuddered beautifully.
Jon slid his hand away to Martin's hip, and stroked it gently over his belly, up to his chest, rested there, while he watched Martin begin to work himself.
"What do you generally think about?"
Martin's hand stuttered to a halt. "Uh, what?"
"When you get yourself off. Not me, you said— "
"Just… people. Not real people."
"You'd never thought about me? At all?"
Martin hid his face in Jon's hair, pausing to kiss. "I thought about — of course, you — so many things. But, just thoughts. Not while I was, you know."
"Tell me," Jon invited. "What did you think of doing to me… or-or me to you?" He put his hand over Martin's again, encouraging him to move.
Martin whined and shivered and then, whispering, focused, into the top of Jon's head, "You'd come out of his office, looking so frustrated, and I just wanted to take you to the stacks, touch you all over, make it better. Or-or-after I was sleeping there and you'd stay late, I'd want to make you stop, go in and interrupt you at your desk kissing you everywhere. Or sometimes I was just, um, horny and I'd think how good it could be if you'd just let me take you home and spoil you all night."
Jon believed it all, but he thought Martin was rounding the corners, softening the edges. He kept his hand on Martin's, learning the way he kept up his rhythm, not too fast or urgent yet.
Martin turned his head away from Jon with a little grunt at the back of his throat, and Jon realised the position had put his neck in an uncomfortable twist.
Jon moved himself instead, leaning up and over to kiss Martin's mouth, bit at Martin's lower lip, pulling it out with a sharp suck and then moving on along Martin's jaw while Martin made little wounded sounds and his hand sped up a little. Jon nibbled the earlobe and found surprisingly little reaction. He grazed Martin's throat with his teeth and that got all the response he could ask for, Martin starting to pant and move his hips.
Jon settled in lying against Martin's side again, tucking in under his arm and snuggling up. He moved his own hand up and stroked Martin's chest with it languidly. Martin's hand behind Jon's back moved to settle hesitantly on Jon's hip, and Jon hummed happily.
Martin was trying to get off. But it wasn't easy with Jon right there. On the one hand, he was so turned on by Jon's presence it was hard to breathe. On the other hand, he felt like he was trying to perform, like he was trying to be interesting enough and yet not gross so that Jon would want to do things like this in the future, and running straight up against the fact that if you looked right at it, wanking was boring and gross. Jon's hand on his had been amazing, and Jon's mouth was never not Martin's favourite thing, but now he'd just sort of cuddled in. Maybe Martin had done too good a job relaxing him.
Jon's fingertips skimmed idly over Martin's chest and that was good.
"What did you imagine about me, the other day?" Jon murmured, in his low, hot, drowsy voice.
Martin stopped altogether. Shit. He'd hoped Jon was going to forget about that. "I-I couldn't."
Jon's head popped up. "Why?"
"I just-I couldn't-I— " he thumped his head back into the pillow. "I couldn't make you do things in my imagination that I don't think you want to do. You're not a doll. And… um… when I… when I imagine, when I'm—shit. This is going to sound so weird."
Jon sat up, still mostly pressed against Martin's side. "Well now I need to hear."
"I don't actually… I don't imagine me. Not exactly. I imagine other people having sex, and sort of… what it would be like to be one of them. But not me. So I'd be imagining you with … somebody else." He couldn't help the twist of displeasure that put across his face, in his voice.
"I didn't realise," Jon said, and Martin twitched slightly because his hand had gone back to idly stroking Martin's chest. "I do not want you to imagine me with anyone else."
"No," Martin agreed.
"But you have imagined doing things with me," Jon prodded.
"I've imagined that things would be nice to do with you. But never— I don't know! Not step by step, not in detail. Not like that."
"Martin," Jon said, in a slow voice that promised he was thinking something that would either fix everything or make Martin combust with shame, "you do still want to get off?"
"Yes," Martin said, gritting his teeth.
"All right. Then let's just have a nice wank."
Martin huffed, and put his hand back on his cock. It had only flagged a little, because, hell, the room was still amazingly full of naked Jon.
"Here," Jon said, softly, "Turn this way."
He moved a little bit away, and Martin couldn't help a sigh of disappointment, but he rolled on his side facing Jon.
Right. Naked Jon. Letting Martin look at him.
Jon smiled at him, and put his hand back on Martin's chest, teasing little strokes. Then he reached out with his other hand, and took Martin's free hand, and dragged it to Jon's chest.
Martin stared at him. Jon nodded.
Martin stroked Jon's chest. Warm skin. His hair was mostly a fan below the collarbones and then more low on his belly, both interrupted here and there with scars. It felt very different to stroke the skin for the sake of his hand's pleasure in touching than in had to massage the muscles beneath. He traced the upturned wings of collarbones and in his other hand his cock was suddenly much wetter, twitching.
"God, Jon, can I kiss — "
Jon reached out for him and brought him in by the back of the neck. Martin tried to keep it gentle, just mouthing, nothing hard, nothing too wet. Jon's hand was firm, holding him there, and that had to mean it was all right, and he was moaning into Jon's skin, his hand working himself up and down. He brushed his lips over one of the tiny dark nipples and Jon jerked.
Before Martin could draw back or ask if it was all right, Jon shoved Martin's face back to the same place. Martin kissed him, nibbled.
Jon's chest heaved. "God, Martin," he gasped out.
Martin pushed himself up and closed his mouth over Jon's, working himself frantically. Close, so close.
Jon's hand skated over Martin's chest, found his nipple, gave a little pinch. Martin swore, panting, breaking off from Jon's mouth, as Jon chuckled at him. Then Jon dragged Martin's head down against his neck. Martin bit there, gently, and then just buried his face in the smell of Jon and worked and worked and worked until he was crying out and coming, trying to keep his hand in the way so that none of it got on Jon.
He finally drooped into the mattress, exhausted and limp, face resting against Jon's warm wonderful chest.
Jon gave another of those little chuckles of his. Martin didn't mind. Jon could keep finding sex ridiculous if he'd keep indulging Martin with it. He moved, not away, but twisting around to reach behind him, and put some tissues in Martin's hand.
"Thanks," Martin managed. When he looked up into Jon's face the man looked completely delighted with himself. That made sense, Jon was delightful. Jon was perfect.
When Martin had done a basic job cleaning himself up, Jon nestled closer, which was lovely and warm and sweet… and a minefield.
Jon was…. aroused. Very. Obviously.
"Oop, sorry," Martin muttered, and twisted himself awkwardly.
Jon blinked. They were supposed to both be loose and relaxed. What now — oh. Martin was trying to keep himself from making contact with Jon's groin. "Martin — "
"Accident, honestly!"
Right, okay, he supposed this hadn't been obvious from the conversation before. Maybe this would finish things out and they wouldn't have to have any more of these painful conversations. "It isn't that I don't like to be touched," he said, in a brisk sing-song. "It's… nice, actually. Sometimes. Just, if we do, sometime, don't… have any expectations."
Martin relaxed again, slowly. "Okay?"
"I mean, please don't expect that you'll be able to get me off."
"Would you even want to?"
Jon sighed. "Maybe? I mean, it has happened. Sometimes I'll try and it will feel amazing for a bit but then again I might just feel — nothing, or-or-or almost queasy? Don't assume it means anything. Sometimes it will go bonkers for absolutely no reason, and sometimes you'll be doing something objectively gorgeous and— nothing. Clearly some faulty wiring."
Martin's head tilted, and then a little cough of a chuckle bubbled out of him. Jon tried to accept it, tried to tell himself that he'd meant the comment about wiring to be amusing. Still, he felt the old hurt. Did this have to be the one time Martin actually got a joke?
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Martin said, giving a soothing stroke over Jon's shoulder, then up to stroke his cheek. "I just — it doesn't sound like faulty wiring to me, Jon, it sounds like a cat. Like you see this little cat on your walk to work every day and it's all right with you giving it a little pet, but if you think you're going to pick it up for a cuddle you're in for a faceful of claws, and sometimes it will roll over to show you its belly — but it's a trap because the whole point is that it's showing you it trusts you not to touch it, so if you give in to temptation — scratched to all hell."
Jon gazed at him. He could imagine very clearly Martin's history of stray cats, each one given all the love he could give them without losing a finger. What Martin wasn't saying — might not even consciously be thinking — was that this history continued with a feral little pest in a basement Archive that Martin had done his best to tame with terrible tea and kindness and when he'd got scratched and snapped at for his trouble, he'd just kept coming back.
"I didn't mean to laugh," Martin said. "Sorry if it sounded mean."
"It's all right. Everything's — good. I liked this. I might like… other things, as long as you don't expect me to be focused on the orgasm part. Mine, I mean. Yours are great."
Martin stared at him.
"What?"
Martin wrapped his arms around Jon, and held him tight. "Oh my god, you."
"What?"
"You think I have attractive orgasms. That's so stupid, and great, and… wow."
Jon felt vaguely that he should be defending his dignity, but he wasn't sure exactly what was threatening it, and anyway Martin felt really good. And anyway, Martin did have extremely attractive orgasms.
The Archivist's ankles are wreathed in mist as he walks across the field, but it does not impair his view, he can see clearly, how this field is sown, what is planted here. Some plots marked with stones, some with mere crumbles, some unmarked. The stones that remain say Forsaken, Alone, Gone, Lost, and Lukas.
There is a moon, a white small face, half veiled in the sky, and it lights her white small face looking up at him from the grave.
She mouths, help me and cries and hates him.
Jon pities her, outside of this dream The Archivist, the one who is here, now does not.
At the edge of this field — it has no edges for her, but the Archivist can See the shapes of things, see the borders even of the infinite — stands the starting and ending place, the chapel door.
But it is not the chapel door now; it has become the Archivist's Door. Behind it is a the sound of the sea, huge waves, the ocean of knowledge.
The moon that has let the Archivist see the dreamer isn't a mere cold white reflector of light, it is what it has always been, the ghost of what should be above, what should See the Archivist, See all, even See Jon.
The Archivist walks up to the Door. The sound behind it he has always heard as storm, waves, ocean. But it isn't. It is the sound of the air tearing, of the world tearing, of something that must open. And as he reaches out to the Door, he sees that it doesn't have a handle after all. It is a smooth arc, fringed along the edges. The Door must open, because the Door is an Eye.
Jon has the terror-crazed thought within the Archivist that it is tears that will pour out, tears, that he had thought were the ocean of knowledge. Tears to drown them all.
The Archivist's scars are all open now:
the pockmarks of the infestation
the cuts on his throat where he was hunted and caught
the burn on one hand that seared away some of his dexterity of touch, some of his fingerprints forever
the slash through the other from the hand of something that fooled the eyes, that has ever since been leading him around by the hand in spinning confusion
the pit of his stomach weightlessly falling upward into infinite nothing
the stab, meaningless and brutal in his shoulder from an ally who was an enemy who was an ally
the false eyes in the back of his head that watched for betrayal, which match where Orsinov's hands gripped his head and spun him in their dance
Oliver Banks' fingerprints on his chest when it was still
the spaces where his ribs should be, where he was reshaped and made thoughtless, merely a body in pain
the crushed feeling of no space no air in his lungs
the spot between his brows opposite where the dark star once hung before it imploded and the darkness gave way to his Sight
the eyes that used to be his own, before he first truly Looked and saw Mr. Spider welcome his guest
and now his lips, which have lost a kiss and kissed loneliness, his lips become lids, because he will no longer need his mouth for anything else
The Archivist Sees the door with all his Eyes, and cannot wait for it to See him back
Jon in horror at how completely he has been taken, shocks himself up out of sleep and is only for a moment aware that the bed, the lover beside him, the world, are all things in the past, while the Door, the Eye, all the Eyes, are the eternal present, the eternal future.
Long lie-ins had become habit by now. Jon sleepily shifted to put his mouth level with Martin's hairline and began pressing kisses along, dry brushes at first, and then his mouth pursing out, as if to get little tastes. Skin, hair, temple, corner of eyebrow, back across. It took just over a dozen kisses before Martin was quivering with chuckles.
"Shut up," Jon grumbled.
Looking down, he could just see Martin's smirk, and then Martin pushed his face into Jon's neck and took three slow kisses down the side, then one just in the place where tendon met collarbone, and then in the notch between collarbones. It was utterly unfair, that Martin's kisses could make Jon's skin hot and ticklish, that a few little kisses could actually feel thrilling, make his heartbeat speed up with the delight of being close, and all Jon could manage to evoke was giggles.
After a bit, Martin pushed up on an elbow and just stayed there, lightly playing fingers against Jon's shoulder.
"What?"
"Just, memorising."
"Hmm?"
"When we're old grey blind men, I want to lie like this and still remember how handsome you are."
This again. Jon thought it was a bit grim for pillow talk.
Martin had started talking about it casually in the past days, taking Jon's agreement for granted; things like: "I suppose I should go look at the moon. I mean, it's not like I ever got, you know, excited about the beauty of the moon, or anything, but it seems like the kind of thing not to miss out on totally." Or: "While it matters, would you rather red roses? I know that's traditional, but maybe all the colours we can get, while we can?"
It struck Jon where this might be coming from.
"Did you talk to Basira about this blinding business?"
"Not really. She mentioned talking to Melanie at one point, that's about all." He frowned a little, and Jon realised he'd almost certainly made a mistake bringing that up. "So, um, when I talked with Basira… she seemed to think we ought to talk about… things."
"Things," Jon said, in his most withering tone, hoping briefly that Martin would revert to that archival assistant who couldn't stand up to disapproval.
But this wasn't that Martin. "Apparently you got up to things— back at the Institute, when we weren't speaking. Um, when I wasn't speaking to you, I mean. That she thinks we ought to talk about"
Jon was going to have a word of his own with Basira. He picked out what seemed like the thing least likely to cause a lot of trouble.
"I did get… pretty desperate. I went and saw Naomi Hearne—" The memory of her small white face shivered through him from the dream.
"Wait, you did what? Naomi Hearne who was — "
"Engaged to Evan Lukas, yes. I went to her flat."
"Wh— oh my god, you were, what, trying to find someone to… No, I don't even know what you thought you were doing."
"I should think it's pretty obvious. Evan Lukas was part of the Lukas family, bound to the Lonely by blood. But he got out. He had a normal life, friends. Fell in love, nearly got married. I wanted to know how he'd done it."
"You went and asked this woman how her dead fiance managed to do normal things like a normal person?"
"I thought there might have been something special. Something he'd done to himself."
"Something on the lines of putting his eyes out?" Shit, exactly what Jon hadn't wanted to bring back up.
"It was… after that, yes. I thought, if there was a way to set ourselves free of the Eye, surely there was also a way to get you free of the Lonely."
"So you went and asked this traumatised woman, who you were re-traumatising every night in her dreams, if her dead fiance had mutilated himself… because you were hoping to mutilate me the same way?"
"When you say it like that…" Jon muttered. "I just. I wanted… I wanted to be able to tell you, I wanted you to know there was a way out."
"Just as well it turns out the way out was just… you, being lovely to me."
Jon couldn't help but perk up at that a little. "Oh. Have I been?"
Martin kissed his cheek. "Yes. Of course, come to think of it, though, you were also a complete arse to me, to get me out of the Lonely, in the end."
"Glad to help."
"She did throw you out of the flat and call you a wanker though, right, Naomi Hearne?"
"She didn't call me a wanker. She called me a monster."
Martin leaned in close, started kissing Jon's cheek, throat, shoulder again. "That's all right," he whispered into Jon's skin, kissing to make him shiver and thrill. "We can stop being monsters. We know how. Whenever you're ready."
So Martin planned their escape, to steal away the Beholding's precious Archivist, to steal back their lives.
But he'd thought they had time.
What was he waiting for? For it to not be only his choice. For it to be the two of them, going into that scary darkness together. Hell, he was practically waiting for Jon to actually put the knife into his hand.
When Jon finally, finally did, in the shattering Panopticon, he guided Martin's hand to the single eye that fractured in and out of existence obscuring half his face, where his own eyes used to be.
They kissed, maybe for the last time.
Jon saw him, for the last time.
And as London became a smear of broken sound and shrill color, as the world fell down, Martin tried to steal back what was his.